Europe’s web of alliances has always been almost incomprehensibly tangled. This is one of the reasons we still disagree so vehemently about the causes of the First World War: the assassination of Franz Ferdinand lit a fuse woven from a …
Ukraine and the myth of peace
It was exactly a year ago this week that, contentedly ensconced in a Cape Town hotel, I was woken in the middle of the night by an incessant pinging on my phone. Messages were pouring in from friends in Ukraine …
The Ukraine war is not complicated
A year ago, as Vladimir Putin launched his so-called “special military operation” to seize the Ukrainian capital, kill Volodymyr Zelenskyy and wipe much of the latter’s country from the map of Europe, who’d have imagined that the third week of …
The Ukraine war is not complicated
A year ago, as Vladimir Putin launched his so-called “special military operation” to seize the Ukrainian capital, kill Volodymyr Zelenskyy and wipe much of the latter’s country from the map of Europe, who’d have imagined that the third week of …
The Ukraine war is not complicated
A year ago, as Vladimir Putin launched his so-called “special military operation” to seize the Ukrainian capital, kill Volodymyr Zelenskyy and wipe much of the latter’s country from the map of Europe, who’d have imagined that the third week of …
Kyiv’s war for independence
The square is an ocean of black and green tents flying yellow and blue flags. Their canvas openings flutter serenely in the breeze amid surroundings of organised chaos. Violence has come to this place. Torn up paving stones lie in …
How Britain betrayed my Ukrainian family
“This reminds me of the Soviet Union,” joked the elderly Ukrainian woman as we joined the queue snaking out of the UK Government’s visa centre in Warsaw. Of course, we had expected a queue — what we hadn’t expected was …
Inside the Battle of Bucha
“The worst thing is that, in the end, you get used to it.” Dmitry — not his real name — is talking to me over a bad line from the town of Bucha in the Kyiv Oblast of Ukraine. Several …
Putin has made Nato stronger
War is the domain of paradox, contradiction, and boundless surprise. It is not merely because of ignorance or stupidity that military history is a record of crimes, follies, defeats, and very few victories worth their cost. Even so, the Ukraine …
Inside Ukraine’s Tinder war
If you are impatient with the calibre of potential partners in your city, Tinder has a feature for you. For £18 a month, you can “passport” to another place; that is, you can set your location to anywhere in the …
The truth about Ukraine’s far-Right militias
Like any war, but perhaps more than most, the war in Ukraine has seen a bewildering barrage of claims and counter-claims made by the online supporters of each side. Truth, partial truths and outright lies compete for dominance in the …
Is this Ukraine’s last chance for peace?
Nearly two weeks into the invasion of Ukraine, observing from a distance, it still feels as if there are two different wars, which barely overlap, taking place.
The first is the war on social media: in this war, a combination …
The Russia we have lost
There were a lot of us in Moscow, back then. Silly, millennial Euro-Brits, trying to be journalists, floating through a boozy world of “hackpack” drinks and Russian liberals. We were there on cooked visas — fixed in Kyiv — dreamers …
A Putin puppet government will fail
Southern Ukraine
A week after it launched its attempted blitz across Ukraine, finally the Russian army has taken its first major city: Kherson, a key port city in the south of the country. But the defenders of Kyiv and Kharkiv …
Why we need a new Domesday Book
As Russian bombs rain down on Kyiv, we should gaze upon our own capital with disgust. How did we allow London to become a piggy bank for Putin’s cronies?
The Government has announced new measures to “flush out the oligarchs, …
